Another Stupid Rant

What a tangled web we weave when we first practice bureaucracy.

I think that one of the key career skills that the Savannah College of Art and Design is trying to teach me is to navigate wholly unnecessary bureaucracy. They touch on it in classes, but they know that the best way to teach someone something is to let them experience it. Therefore they have created twisted hoops made up of incomprehensible paperwork and endless strings of signatures from people you will never, ever meet for us to jump through. Face to face civility is of course out of the question.

What I hate is that I plan on adding to it all by issuing an official contract with two solid pages full of small typed legal clauses with every free-lance deal I broker. Unfortunately, we live in a world governed by the few truly evil people that are our neighbors. We can't trust them. They will steal our pants off our asses if we don't stay vigilant. For instance, if I don't have a two page legal contract, many publishers would be more than happy, verbal agreement or not, to use my artwork and pay me absolutely nothing and give me no credit. Some might claim that they own the intellectual rights of my work and then sue me if I use it without their written consent. These are the sharks that I hope to gain a decent living from. To protect myself from the bad ones I have to protect myself from everybody. And that includes you.

© 2005 all rights reserved by Steve Haske.

Sudoku

I am finally starting to get a good technique for playing sudoku. I think that this might replace the weboggle addiction that I kicked a few months ago.

My mother-in-law loves crossword puzzles. (I've always hated them. HATED!) When my sister-in-law gave her a book of Sudoku puzzles, thinking that she might enjoy the similarities, my mother-in-law said, "Your idea of fun is toooorturrrrrrrre." Here are the reasons Sudoku is far superior to crossword puzzles. 1) They rely on pure logic. No stupid mumbo jumbo like "aria" for the clue, "Rousing song" or "owen" for "Goofy actor" right after "ewan" for "Forceful actor". You would only get that kind of crap if you play crosswords all the time and you happen to know that crossword writers love to use "aria" and other key words because it fits nicely in a jam. That sucks. 2) That's it. Sudoku is better. It really is nothing like crosswords, but it is the new fad that is replacing/complimenting it on the funnies page. I was always into joining new fads. Like hula hooping. Like blogging.

Wax Off

It saddens me so much to learn that Mr. Miyagi, Pat Morita, has died. DEAD! He died of natural causes, which is normal for a man of his age. But he will live on forever as the most kick-assest of anybody I have ever known in the movies. And I have seen The Transporter, and a bunch of Jean Claud Van Damn flicks. You could debate on and on about who would win in a fight between Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Bruce Lee. I don't think anybody would argue against Mr. Miyagi rubbing their faces in it. He wouldn't even get mad, because that's not his style. He was always cool as ice. But not vanilla ice. Much cooler than that.

Here he is being cool with Ralph. He almost reminds me of Yoda in this picture, with Ralph being so much like Luke in more ways than one. Yoda also demands respect. A fight to end all fights would be between Yoda and Mr. Miyagi. Both are figures of stature, wisdom and prowess. I would put my money on Mr. Miyagi because he didn't even need a light saber to kick ass. And he knows how to run a great diner frequented by a bunch of rowdy kids rocking around the clock.

Giving Thanks

We had a fantastico Thanksgiving right here in Savannah. Many weeks ago Marigold and I didn't think that too many people would be sticking around for Thanksgiving and we would have to rough it by our lonely selves. Little did we know that many of our lovely friends were in the same gravy boat! Therefore, we all got together and had a potluck dinner. Marigold made a great turkey. She also cooked the bird.

It has been cold lately, but yesterday was actually warm and dry and beautiful, so we moved everybody out to the back porch. The picture is of Marigold and Susan making their best wish faces.

Good friends + Good food = Good times.

Million Dollar Idea Numero Tres

1. Go to Hollywood.
2. Buy a Starmap.
3. Go to every celebrity house you can.
4. Take a picture of all their front gates (It's all you will ever see)
5. Go back to your New York studio.
6. Paint the front gates LARGE on canvases - flat and graphic.
7. Title them the name of the celebrity as if it were a portrait.
8. Display.

Ain't Misbehavin'

I know what you're thinking. "What is going on with that perfectly fascinating and charming Steve Haske? He has been recently reticent in his otherwise highly engrossing web log. I do say."

Well, I can't say that there hasn't been anything going on, because, oh boy, has there been. In Spades. In fact, I get little Q.T. with my cutie. As one of the many tasks, I updated my website, if you would care to shimmy on over there to check it out.

But this will all end this next week. Classes end on Tuesday, and I will be giving thanks for that on Thursday. I can then do all the things that I always said I would do if I didn't have classes getting in the way. Like . . . um . . . Myst 4 and 5, Shadow of the Colossus, Civ 4, Good Night and Good Luck, Harry Potter, etc. I guess I should probably start thinking about Christmas and all the obligations of that as well.

Really I will have to get together all my professional credentials, if I have any at all, in order to apply to teaching positions. That process is going on right now throughout the country and I need to jump on the train if I plan having employment in that realm come next fall. Scary, huh? Imagine me teaching people how to draw? All those doubts that are going through your head about that, are going through mine doubly. Anyway, I also want to make another submission to this year's Teatrio competition.

Royal Flush

Say! That's sure is a nice hand you got there, partner.

This the first set of face cards I have complete. The other suits will be slightly different; Spades - Cowboys, Diamonds - Mexicans, Clubs - Europeans/Canadians. Am I being too offensive? Am I exploiting bad stereotypes? Normally I wouldn't be too concerned about that as I am an offensive, exploitative person for the sake of humor. I often go over the line, but my boyish charm has pulled me back from any serious fisticuffs. Maybe as I grow older and more legitimate I won't, or shouldn't be able to get away with it as much. Also, for commercially viable illustration that kind of behavior isn't generally condoned. However, certain people do make loads of money from it, so screw it.

Dork Fest

I dragged Marigold to an opening of a show on the history of Sequential Art tonight. "Panel Progressions: 100 Years of Sequential Art" at Red gallery, where I usually work. Sure, I knew it would show off dorks being dorks - blown up pages of all sort of space, fantasy, mutant, superhero wallahoo. What I didn't expect was a Mardi Gras caliber crowd pressing all their noses up against every frame and each other. There were actually several who dressed up - One Shazzam!, a Spiderman, and many goth-ish type people who I suspect are always in costume. I don't like large crowds (apparently it's called enochlophobia) and so I hung around outside until we could sneak off to dinner.

My playing cards are falling behind schedule. Hopefully I can get them all designed by this weekend. The printing process is starting to stress me out although. I might have to resort to Kinkos. I am a simple boy. All I want is 50 to 100 high-quality, double-sided, card-stock, glossy surface, one day turn around, cheap poster prints.

My Reward in Heaven

I spent the whole weekend attending a free studio workshop on gilding. I should have been paying attention to my wife, or perhaps getting some other relative work done. But how could I pass up a workshop on making frames from one of the countries leading experts on the history of and making frames - Bill Adair? He was really great despite the parade of logistic disasters that struck on Sunday. Because of issues like missing gold leaf and lack of schedule, nobody actually came away with a finished product. I will have to buy some supplies to finish mine. The important thing is - now I know how to gild properly and I have the free instructional books and pamphlets to prove it. I can now gild the beautiful Peruvian frame I brought back from there all those years ago. I wanted to do it before, but didn't because I didn't want to mess it up with my lack of knowledge.

I have had a fascination with super ornate decorations, like frames, for a long time now. The more silly and unnecessary the better (Illuminated manuscripts, Gothic and Louis XIV crap is great). A project that I have had in my head for a long time is to make a giant fancy gilded frame at least eight feet or ten feet to a side with layer on layer of gilded design. The special thing about it would be the tiny opening: two by two inches at the largest with a mirror placed near eye level with a tilt. This is so that people will be able to see themselves framed as richly as possible. It would be titled, "My Asshole." I would gaze into it often just to knock me down a few pegs, while at the same time making me look good.

Piggies

I passed my Review just fine. Yay for me. This is one of my recent pieces that I showed at it and them important people seemed to like it. I got some good compliments, but more importantly for me I got some good advice. For example, I need to keep in mind my color theory sometimes. On many pieces I get too complex with the color and lose focus or make an unviewable mess. Or I have made the mistake on several pieces of having the value or saturations too similar. I would never know these type of things without outside critiques because I very often get too wrapped up in the process to see my own work objectively. That is probably true for any activity that anybody does.

I am currently working on a deck of cards that I will use as a promotional gimmick to send to Art Directors. Then they can throw them away along with all the other crap that all the other desperate wannabe illustrators send them. Speaking of, I believe I got a paid commission yesterday, kind of. I am still working it out, but it will be a little money and exposure, so I am happy. The part that I don't like about actually getting free-lance jobs is the accounting. What the hell am I supposed to do about that? I hate all that paperwork. That's one of the things that killed Marigold's Calendula Card business.